Hard Truths

Writer-director Mike Leigh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Camberwell and Central Art Schools in London, and at the London Film School. His first feature film Bleak Moments (1971) won him the Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival and the Golden Hugo at Chicago in 1972. This was followed by the full-length television films, Hard Labour (1973), Nuts in May (1975), The Kiss of Death (1976), Who’s Who (1978), Grown-Ups (1980), Home Sweet Home (1982), Meantime (1983), and Four Days in July (1984). His other feature films are High Hopes (1988), Life is Sweet (1990), Naked (1993), Secrets and Lies (1996), Career Girls (1997), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010), Mr. Turner (2014) and Peterloo (2018). Across his career, Mike’s films have collected 25 BAFTA nominations and seven wins, as well as 16 Oscar nods and two wins.

At the 2008 SFFILM Festival, Leigh was presented with SFFILM’s Directing Award.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste received Academy Award, Golden Globe, and British Academy Award nominations for her riveting performance in Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies (1996). Now, Jean-Baptiste and Leigh have reunited for his upcoming feature Hard Truths (2024), an exploration of the contemporary world with a tragicomic study of human strengths and weaknesses. Jean-Baptiste and Leigh’s history of collaboration has been decades long; they first worked together on his theatrical show A Great Big Shame (1993). In addition to her work with Mike as an acclaimed actress, Jean-Baptiste is a writer and composer and also wrote the score for Leigh’s feature film Career Girls (1997). She was recently seen in the BBC drama The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies (2023) and in the feature film Rumble Through the Dark (2024) opposite Aaron Eckhart. She also starred in the Apple TV+ series Surface (2022) opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw and in romantic comedy Boxing Day (2021) opposite Aml, Yasmin Monet Prince, and Aja Naomi King.

Jean-Baptiste has also graced the stages of the Royal National Theatre and Shakespeare in the Park, is an accomplished musician, and made her directorial debut with the short film Ink (2019), which she also penned.

Natalie is the author of the novel, Queen Sugar, which was adapted for seven television seasons by writer/director Ava DuVernay, and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey. Queen Sugar was named one of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of 2014, and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Her non-fiction book, We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land & Legacy, is an Amazon Editor’s Pick and was a Wall Street Journal Book of the Year, 2021. Natalie was a SFFILM resident from 2018–2020. She is currently shooting a documentary feature Harvest and just completed her first narrative short film, Black Girl in Paris.